Purple Gallinule
This morning, when I woke up, I went to clean the dishes like I had hundreds of times before. As I was in the process, I noticed the little spray thing tucked neatly into the corner of the sink. I have no idea what the little spray things’s official name is but it’s that hosed contraption on the side of many kitchen sinks and it tends to pop out at me at the most unexpected of times. In this case, I’ve been in my new apartment for six and a half months and up until today I had no idea it was there. I grew up with one and I imagine it is still in my parents kitchen, in the same place it always was, but I couldn’t recall a single detail about it—what side of the sink it lay on, what material it’s made of, whether it has a strong or weak stream. I can’t picture it. At my last apartment I had one too but I didn’t know it was there until two years in. I spent two years trying to figure out the most efficient way to clean the walls of the kitchen sink. I found that filling a cup of water and then splashing it awkwardly at each side —hitting some spots, missing others—worked best. Then, the little sink thing appeared and every time I looked at it, after seeing it for the first time, I was in awe of its significant yet invisible existence.
I feel like my little sink thing issue must be representative of a larger, more invasive problem. There are aspects of our lives, placed right in front of us, over and over again, that we don’t see for years—maybe we never see them. I mean we could go systemic with this — point out the obvious about racism, sexism or any other ism—how they can go completely unseen for a person's entire life until one day someone calls them out on it and they’re astonished. But, it’s really the less invasive aspects I want to focus on here, the little sink things that lay right in front of us, unexposed, until that one day when we see them and realize how much easier life can be now that they are here. The parts that satisfy us because they offer a new perspective, a new way to look at the mundanity of life. Sometimes there are people who come into our lives and do this—people who sit at the periphery of our day to day, potential familial friends or soulmates who go unseen, until that moment when we notice them and suddenly they become everything. That missing link that guides us into the crevices of ourselves—the places we couldn’t possibly grasp before. This is the optimistic spin on it, and it’s important to say that of course people aren’t comparable to objects—a friend or loved one you didn’t know you had, a friend or loved one who gets you to the places you couldn’t get before is much more than a little sink thing but the comparable part is that periphery where both exist. The places you don’t see. The people you don’t see. The tools you don’t see. Because you don’t think to look for them.
The more cynical examples are the examples that involve people thinking so little of themselves they don’t see the love another has for them. They don’t see the way a person thinks to put the tomatoes on the side, even though the recipe specifically calls for tomatoes that are mixed in, because they know their lover doesn’t like them. They don’t see that the tomatoes being on the side was never mentioned because the goal wasn’t to get accolades, it was to provide a more pleasurable experience for the one they love. They don’t see the way the dishes get magically done or the way dust gets removed or the way a floor gets vacuumed. They don’t see the way their lover smiles at them every time they look confused because something about their confusion, whether it be the face they make or the innocence of it, makes their lover grin—makes them feel connected, intrigued, enamored. They don’t see how much pleasure their lover feels when they stuff their face—stick the food in so quickly they have to store it in their cheeks and swallow little bits at a time. They don’t see that their lover finds this endearing, human, that sometimes it is a highlight of their day. They don’t see how even when they feel fat, because their family is fatphobic and so they have an unharmonious view of their own natural body—a body they find beautiful on others—that their lover finds them just as attractive, if not more. They don’t see how much it hurts their lover to see them look down on themselves with such disdain. They don’t see the way their lover listens to them, even when they are being ridiculous, or the way their lover comes back to bed when they know you are waking up, even though they are so awake they could build a house with their awakeness, just so they can hold you for a few more minutes before you go.
The little sink things are different from all these things I am listing though—they live outside of my ability to notice. They are the things I am truly blind to. They are clear and present and working. I may even touch them every now and then when I reach for something. I may stand in front of them up to ten times a day for consistent periods. The most pressing issue is that they can be life changing and that they may be something I wish for everyday—something I pray for, something I try to manifest. Yet, in reality, they are literally right in front of me
Transmissions Circa 2014 with some additions in 2022
Birds-Eye-View Spotlight Writer
If you want more from The Birds — Check out Mercy Tullis-Bukhari. Mercy is a poet, essayist, and fiction writer who is Bronx-bred Afro-Latinx, Honduran and Garifuna, of Jamaican descent. Mercy is a Callaloo Fellow, and obtained her MFA in Creative Writing from The College of New Rochelle. She was named one of the “8 Authors Being Afro-Latina Stories to the Forefront” by Remezcla Magazine and was a Pushcart Prize nominee in 2016. Her third book of poetry will be published by Get Fresh Books, LLC, this year. Mercy lives in New Rochelle, NY, with her two children and teaches high school English in the Southeast section of The Bronx.
